Saturday, August 08, 2015

How to block problematic Windows or driver updates from reinstalling in Windows 10

In Windows 10, updates and drivers gets installed automatically without having to select which updates are needed or not needed. This has been done so that the device is always kept up to date with the latest updates that may also include important fixes and features.

But sometimes this can create problems too. Some driver or update may cause issues with ones device. Like yesterday when an AMD driver update was pushed via Windows update and started causing the issues to many. As it caused the display goes bad with no choice for higher resolution or causing the users display to go black.

Problematic driver installed, what to do?

The AMD driver update shown above caused the issue. So once installed what to do? If your Windows was working fine before this update was installed, you can follow these steps:

To uninstall the unwanted driver:

Right click on Start > Device Manager

locate the device driver with problem driver installed, right click & uninstall. And in the uninstall dialog, check the box to Delete the driver software for this device if available.

(The above screenshot is just to show the option and is of correct drivers)

To uninstall unwanted Windows update:

In the search box, type ‘View Installed Updates’ and click on View Installed updates.- Control Panel from search results

It will provide list of all installed Windows updates , select, right click and Uninstall.

Somehow if you could not do any of these then there is an option of Restore Point. So ensure that after upgrading to Windows 10, the System protection is ON for the C Drive. (or the OS drive)

Right click on Start > System >System protection > System protection tab

Block the problematic Windows or driver update:

Now that you have uninstalled the problematic driver or windows update or returned to previous good state using restore point option, that driver will again be made available to install. So Microsoft has provided “Show or hide updates’ troubleshooter package. This will temporarily prevent the driver or update from being reinstalled until a fix or a new driver is made available. So just hide the driver or windows update using this troubleshooter tool.

The following package file wushowhide.diagcab is available for download from the Microsoft Download Center